


Take My Hand

by the_moonmoth



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), God Ships Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Light Angst, M/M, Nanny Crowley (Good Omens), Romance, She/Her Pronouns for Crowley (Good Omens), Slow Dancing, but not really, like really light, set during the dowling era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 04:41:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20129512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_moonmoth/pseuds/the_moonmoth
Summary: Shall I stay?Would it be a sinIf I can’t help falling in love with you?In which an angel and a demon slow dance in a bookshop. Just some soft, ineffable romance on a Saturday afternoon.





	Take My Hand

**Author's Note:**

> In the cosmic roulette that is using voice recognition technology when you don’t have an American accent, I asked Alexa to play Elbow, and she played me Elvis instead. I am helpless to resist such ineffable prodding! No mice were harmed in the writing of this fic. And yes, God is a shipper. Big beta thanks to Ladiama. Concrit is welcome, as ever.
> 
> A note for Americans and the rest of the world: 'AmDram' is a common abbreviation of Amateur Dramatics. Its correct pronunciation is with a slight grimace, a searching look into the middle-distance, and a heartfelt shudder.

**Take My Hand**

Aziraphale shrugged out of his cardigan and sat at his writing bureau in his shirtsleeves and waistcoat, staring thoughtfully at nothing in particular. The scroll of vellum before him was blank, and his feather quill sat unused in the ornate crystal inkwell. His dispatches to Heaven generally required a certain amount of, ah, massaging, where the Arrangement was involved, but these last few years since the Antichrist had been delivered to Earth required a particular flavour of evasion that took a little more consideration. Well, no purpose in delaying. Sliding his reading glasses on purposefully, Aziraphale took up his quill and began.

_ Everything continues to go well, _ he wrote. _ Have introduced the Antichrist child to the joys of worm composting. _ ‘Joy’ was stretching it, he thought, shuddering at the remembered reek of the composting bins in the summer sunshine, but Crowley -- or, Nanny, rather (had to maintain that important distinction, a slip of the tongue could be disastrous) -- had insisted it would be good for spreading on the flower beds, and worms were a creature universally beloved of small children. _ Successfully taught him to handle and care for them with the utmost respect as part of Her creation. _ Probably best to leave out the bit where Nanny had facilitated young Warlock in dropping a particularly fat and wriggly worm down the back of Cook’s shirt. He was a dreadful tyrant, anyway, that Cook. Never let Aziraphale come in for tea and biscuits when he was around. Something about his dirty boots -- _ completely _ unreasonable. Thank goodness for Nanny, really, or he’d have to spend his entire time _ gardening _ . What a thought. _ The demon Crowley continues to be a wily adversary, but I work hard to thwart him at every turn. Last week, in fact, I-- _

A sound like a papery landslide made Aziraphale pause mid-sentence. He glanced around the bookshop over the rim of his glasses. Nothing seemed awry: the door was locked with the sign turned to ‘closed’ and he was quite sure he hadn’t missed anyone when he’d ushered the last human out a short while ago. Good God it had better not be mice again. He thought he’d made it quite clear the last time they’d attempted an incursion that his territory was _ not for the taking_. Sometimes these lessons needed revisiting, apparently.

Setting his quill down, he stood from his bureau and took himself in the general direction of the sound, peering scathingly into corners, looking for the telltale rustle and skitter of little paper-scritching claws.

“I’m warning you,” he said sternly to the pest-harbouring nooks and crannies of his shop. “I have a--” he looked around, and grabbed up the first thing to hand that wasn’t an invaluable book-- “a newspaper and I know how to use it!” He rolled it up into a baton and brandished it menacingly. “Oh, you’ve picked the wrong bookseller to trifle with, you little terrors,” he warned. As if humans trying to buy his books wasn’t bad enough -- he simply wouldn’t stand for them being _ eaten _. Slowly, he crept around the stacks of books and furniture, newspaper raised, eager eyes darting about. Another papery noise, and Aziraphale spun around towards the kitchenette. “And what’s more,” he added, in a moment of inspiration, “I am personally acquainted with one of the biggest snakes you’ll ever hope to see. You wouldn’t even be a snack to him. So you’d better-- better buck up your ideas!”

He would, in all honesty, prefer not to enlist Crowley’s help. Despite his penchant for treating daring rescues as a matter of course, _ no need to thank me, angel, no _ really_, shut up now, _somehow Aziraphale had a feeling that asking him for demonic pest control was the kind of thing it might take several decades to live down. But the mice didn’t need to know that.

Out of the corner of his eye, Aziraphale saw something move beneath the cast iron Victorian range. Caught between a flinch and some vestigial instinct to righteousness, he brought the newspaper down on a small brown lump of a thing with a resounding _ thwap! _It bounced with the force of the impact and then lay there, limp.

“Oh! Oh no!” he cried, rearing back in horror. “What have I done? You poor thing.”

Bending to retrieve the dead mouse, he discovered it was, in fact, a very old, very dry, very wrinkly vegetable. The movement he’d seen must have been his own shadow. The little part of Aziraphale that spoke in Crowley’s voice laughed uproariously at him.

“Well done, angel,” he told himself dolefully. “You’ve smote a potato.”

The rustle of sensible woollen skirts was the only warning he got before a soft, Scottish-accented voice asked, “Smiting tubers now, are we? There are better ways to go about getting lunch.”

“Nanny!” Aziraphale said jumping to his feet, smile breaking out like the sun through clouds. “What a pleasant surprise. Do come in.”

They’d arranged to meet, of course. It being a weekend, they were at their leisure to leave their posts at Arundel House, and being in dire need of some privacy to discuss their strategies for the coming months, had decided to decamp to the bookshop. But Aziraphale, who always sought out his familiar clothes and nicely straightened teeth as soon as possible, had been expecting Crowley, not Nanny Ashtoreth.

He looked at her curiously. “Didn’t feel like changing?”

Coolly, Nanny removed her hat, gloves and coat, and hung them up on the stand by the door. She paused a moment, then also removed her sunglasses, tucking them into her carpet bag before setting it down by the base of the stand.

“Why would I?” she asked. The breathy way she pronounced the silent h -- _ hhwy _ \-- gave him a delicious flutter of delight. “I’m only slipping into something more masculine these days when I have to report to head office.”

“It is quite the bother, isn’t it?” Aziraphale said sympathetically. The constant switching back and forth between appearances could get tiresome, even if Aziraphale was having a certain amount of fun with it (illicit as that may be). “I’ll put the kettle on.” Turning back to the range, arm outstretched, he paused. “Oh, and watch out for _ mice_.”

***

Aziraphale’s kettle was an old electric affair, and yet he always, without fail, set it on the stove top to boil, and never plugged it in. Crowley smiled a little, as she always did, and neglected to say anything. Bringing it to Aziraphale’s attention would be completely counterproductive -- the only reason it worked was because right now, he didn’t know any better.

“Mice?” she asked, drifting further into the back room, past the ancient computer, also unplugged, towards the small seating area where they always conducted their business. There on a side table was the gramophone, and on the floor beside it, the remains of a stack of vinyl records in their paper sleeves that had clearly succumbed to gravity, and were now snaking quite artfully across the floor. 

“Oh, yes,” Aziraphale said distractedly, gathering up the tea things. “Heard a noise back here, assumed it was my furry nemeses back for another round of crossing wits.”

“Pardon?”

“They’re surprisingly crafty, the little devils.”

“No, not tha-- The bit about furry nemeses.”

“Ah, well, back in 1959,” Aziraphale began, “I was on a buying trip to Yorkshire, when...”

Crowley raised an eyebrow and let him go on for a minute or two, before interrupting. “I think I’ve found your culprit, actually.”

“You have? Oh, I knew I should have asked you first!”

Crowley gave him a particular look, of the type that would have had Mr. and Mrs. Dowling running for cover. “What are you talking about? It’s your LP's.”

“Oh? _ Oh. _ Goodness, they must have fallen over.”

Crowley rolled her eyes. It wasn’t a very Nanny-ish thing to do, but it was entirely possible she wouldn’t have been able to stop herself even with the armies of Heaven and Hell staring her down. 

“Do you _ think so? _Just make the tea, angel,” she snapped. “I’ll tidy this up.”

The skirts Nanny favoured were long and slender-fitted, and shaped Crowley into moving a particular way. No sprawling legs and ball-toed crouches for Nanny Ashtoreth: Crowley sank down on her knees, hands pressed neatly into her lap for a heartbeat, before she realised what she was doing, and released them to their natural restlessness.

She hadn’t meant to stay in role this long, had only spoken to Aziraphale in Nanny’s voice to try and make him jump, as was most people’s reaction (especially effective and satisfying when applied to Cook, that magnificent despot). And then he’d had to go and _ smile _ at her like that, and Crowley had tensed, as she always did, waiting for him to remember who they were, where they were, who might be watching, and the smile to disappear. But it hadn’t. In fact, Aziraphale was still smiling vaguely to himself even now as he pottered around the kitchenette. This was _ not _ how their meetings usually went.

Crowley had worked out pretty early on that Aziraphale was enjoying playing his role in their high-stakes game with the Antichrist rather more than was proper. He sang obnoxiously loudly and cheerfully as he went about his day, had got into some kind of low-grade, pantry-related war game with Cook, and, when he wasn’t mentoring Warlock, generally seemed to laze around in the unnaturally good (ie dry) weather, doing very little actual gardening. And he twinkled and flirted quite outrageously with Nanny Ashtoreth; Crowley, pathetic bastard that she was, had been soaking it up like a sponge. So no, she hadn’t come in here planning on being Nanny, but Aziraphale didn’t smile at _ Crowley _ like that, and so here she was.

“Pleasant morning?” the angel called over, as if to prove that very point. It wasn’t that they never did small talk (though it was most commonly _ after _ business had been concluded and several rounds of alcohol consumed), it was that he was so blessed cheerful about it. Relaxed and happy and… _ comfortable. _

“Broke the traffic lights at Piccadilly on my way over,” Crowley said, scowling as she leafed unseeingly through the scattered vinyls. It wasn’t a particularly novel piece of demonic handiwork, but it never failed to be effective. “Tempers will be fraying well into the evening. You?”

“Oh, you know, nothing special, nothing _ on the books_, so to speak. Just manning the fort against customers; the usual.”

“You do know you’re supposed to want customers, yes?” Crowley felt obliged to point out, but that, too, was not a particularly novel observation.

“Perish the thought,” Aziraphale said mildly. Then, “Why don’t you put some music on, my dear?”

Crowley nearly swallowed her tongue. As if it wasn’t enough that Aziraphale was parading around in his waistcoat and shirt sleeves, practically casual wear for the angel, now this? But as she gathered the LP's into smaller, more stable stacks, one slid out from the bottom of the pile and caught her eye. Well, that was rather out of character for Aziraphale, wasn’t it? Crowley would’ve sworn he didn’t own anything composed after 1920. Driven by the perverse desire to get back at him somehow, she straightened up and popped it onto the turntable.

Aziraphale walked over with the tray of tea things just as the first strains were starting up. “Is this mine?” he asked, frowning.

“Well it isn’t your furry nemeses’s.”

And Aziraphale, on whom Crowley would’ve bet real pounds sterling to respond by shooting him a sarcastic look -- Aziraphale _ chuckled. _

“Quite right, Nanny,” he said jovially, setting the tray down on the coffee table. 

Ah. Yes of course. She saw it now. Because although he was dressed like himself, Aziraphale was still, on some level, playing his role. Just as Crowley (stupidly, stupidly) was. With this level of dedication, she supposed she should probably thank whoever was listening that Aziraphale hadn’t yet discovered the dubious pleasures of the local AmDram society. The magic tricks were bad enough. Small mercies.

“Well, I can’t say it’s my usual style,” Aziraphale added, giving the gramophone a considering look. “Quite charming in its way, though.”

From the gramophone’s horn, Elvis Presley’s _ Always on My Mind _ drifted scratchily into the room, and Crowley resisted the urge to squirm. Love songs. Right. Why had she thought this was a good idea, again?

“A little modern for you, isn’t it?” she said hopefully. “This is, what, only fifty years old?”

“Well. Not all modern music is bebop,” Aziraphale said, which was a new one on Crowley.

“Really. Next you’ll be asking me to dance,” she said. She meant it sarcastically, but speaking as Nanny instead of Crowley, it automatically came out saucily, repressively suggestive, and Crowley stilled, a painful freezing process, waiting, waiting for the rebuff.

“What an excellent idea!” Aziraphale beamed, holding out his hand. “Shall we?”

_ “Little things I should’ve said or done, I just never took the time," _Elvis crooned.

“Wouldn’t want to go too fast for you,” Crowley said faintly.

“Oh, nonsense. It’s slow dancing,” Aziraphale said, as if he hadn’t told Crowley that exact thing just four decades earlier, haunted eyes pleading with him for understanding in the ghastly flicker of neon lights, and left Crowley gutted with hope and despair. “Nothing fast about it.”

What was she going to do? Refuse? It wasn’t like Crowley had ever learned how to veer away from a dangerous situation -- not one that involved Aziraphale, at least. Reaching out, almost certain it was for her own doom, she took Aziraphale’s proffered hand and stepped closer.

There was a moment of adolescent awkwardness as they tried to wordlessly negotiate where their other hands should go. Crowley patted Aziraphale’s shoulder a couple of times before committing to resting her hand there, while Aziraphale scrunched the silk of Crowley’s blouse a little too tightly at her waist.

“Isn’t this pleasant?” he said bracingly, a tiny crack in his voice betraying the sentiment, and Crowley thought very hard about stepping on his toes.

“Don’t quote me on this,” she said tersely. “But isn’t there traditionally some sort of movement involved?”

“Ah, yes,” Aziraphale said. “Um.” He was staring at her with an expression that might have been called avid, except that Aziraphale didn’t look at her like that. Would never, had never; or, if he had, she’d been looking the other way. For six thousand years. Right, really likely. At this close range, it was like being scalded behind the eyes.

_ I’m so sorry I was blind _

_ You were always on my mind _

This was excruciating, and Crowley had never excelled at holding still. Grimly, she took half a step forward, and Aziraphale moved with her obediently. Another half a step, and he seemed to snap out of it with a small, bashful smile and an apologetic squeeze of her hand.

“Sorry, my dear,” he murmured. “But your eyes really are rather beautiful. I don’t get to see them nearly often enough these days.” And thankfully he ended that thought by pulling her closer, so that she could look over his shoulder and not have to think about what to do with her face.

Of course, that just meant they were close enough to share body heat, and the angel was nothing if not warm. Crowley stared sightlessly into shelf upon shelf of books, the golden-brown tones of wood and old leather in greens and blues, blurring together as they swayed, and tried to think of something, _ anything _ that wasn’t the heat of Aziraphale’s hand at her waist, the weight and foreign comfort of it, the indelible line of each finger. The way silk felt once it had warmed up to body temperature, as though it wasn’t there at all.

Aziraphale sighed, a soft caress of warm breath across Crowley’s cheek that made her head swim. The velvet of his waistcoat was a satiny prickle under her fingertips, and she realised she was stroking it. With fatalistic daring, she let her fingers slide under the shoulder, to the smooth, warm cotton of Aziraphale’s shirt beneath.

“The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra,” Aziraphale said abruptly. His voice was hushed, a little strained, as though they were sitting side by side in the royal circle mid-performance, instead of standing with their bodies paper-sheet-finely separated. Aching with every atom, Crowley took a moment to catch up.

“Sorry, what?”

“This singer. That’s the Royal Phil accompanying him. It, uh, must be why I have this record.” The strings built to a moment of high romance as if to emphasise Aziraphale’s point.

“Ah,” Crowley said. “Glad we got that straightened out.”

“My reputation is saved,” Aziraphale said, a smile in his voice even if Crowley couldn’t see his face. She closed her eyes against the awful swell of emotion.

_ “This singer_,” she muttered. “Angel, do you know, even newborn babies know who Elvis Presley is.”

“Do they?” Aziraphale said softly. “Well you know what I always say about humans.”

“What’s that?”

_ Maybe I didn’t treat you _

_ Quite as good as I should have _

“They have such in--infinite thirst for knowledge. It makes them quite fearless, in their way, forever forging ahead.” His voice was doing something complicated. Crowley listened intently as her fingers continued their tiny cotton-stroke circles. “Not like m-- not like--” He swallowed, and beneath her wandering fingers, she felt sinew shifting as though he was attempting to draw his spine up straighter. “Not like you and I, Nanny.”

And oh. _ Oh. _ You _ bastard _ , Aziraphale. Her fingers and heart clawed up, nothing but dry bones, but her treacherous feet continued to keep rhythm. She opened her mouth to hiss at him, to plead with him for mercy, _ something, _but of course that was the moment the song faded out, and something even slower came on. 

_ Wise men say only fools rush in _

Crowley shut her mouth. She _ was _ a fool. No denying it. She was an infinitely foolish bastard who didn’t know how to walk away, and worse, didn’t want to. Even if this was all she could have. Even if this was all she would ever get. She had known this for years, millennia, it wasn’t anything new, and Aziraphale had never led her on, never misrepresented whatever it was they _ did _ have between them. No, that nasty, humiliating four-letter word -- she’d done that all her own blessed self. And yet… and yet...

_ For I can’t help falling in love with you _

“I _ can’t _ help it, you know,” she whispered.

“Hush, darling,” Aziraphale soothed, and finally, there it was, the lightest flutter of golden straw in the slanted light of the bookshop as it fell on Crowley’s shoulder, and she was broken. Crowley closed her eyes, bid a mental farewell to the Scottish accent, and when she opened them again, she was herself. She stood in the circle of Aziraphale’s arms, immaculate coiffure coming loose until her hair fell in waves around her face, silk blouse unbuttoning to her breastbone, sensible court shoes remembering that they were really snakeskin boots.

“Aziraphale, _ I _can’t help it. Me.”

Aziraphale pulled away, gave her an inscrutable look. The weight of his hand at her waist lessened and she braced herself for this to be over, forced herself not to scramble a take-back. Not like it would work at this point, anyway. And then that hand, still warm from where it had cradled her body, was brushing an unkempt ringlet back from her cheek.

“I know,” he breathed, and Crowley looked at his eyes, really looked. In the dusty, ambered light of the afternoon, Aziraphale’s eyes were a fathomless dark, glittering and immeasurable, shadowed with an ancient longing that cracked Crowley open and poured something sacred inside.

“Oh.” She burned with the realisation, because somehow, now she knew, she _ knew, _ it wasn’t callousness or cruelty (oh, angel, she should’ve _ always _ known better than that). The reason Aziraphale was carrying on this way, the reason he so shamelessly enjoyed their playacting at Arundel House, was because of its safety. Both of their sides knew what they were up to, and for the first time, their physical proximity was not only sanctioned, but expected -- _ up to a point _. And that point was where their roles ended, and their real selves began. Aziraphale (clever, clever) had realised that from the beginning. Aziraphale, who had always recoiled from putting Crowley in danger with Hell.

This strangest angel, he’d given up his sword, but here he was now with his shield, and it was as much a part of him as the wing he’d once held over Crowley’s head.

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale said.

“No,” Crowley told him. “Don’t be.” 

They spoke in whispers, like a promise.

“What now?” Aziraphale asked.

“We keep dancing,” Crowley said, pulling Aziraphale back in. “Just this once.”

“Yes, all right,” Aziraphale said, looking uncertain and somehow young. (They were both of them children when it came to this.)

A new song was starting. They moved again, less stiffly now, more conscious of the moment. Crowley turned her face towards Aziraphale until her nose brushed gently against the rim of his ear, his hair. Aziraphale put his hand back on her waist and then slid it around to the small of her back. The smell of his cologne, his skin, his divine nature, she let it surround her like a halo, and forced herself not to break down.

_ Just pretend, I'm holding you _

_ And whispering things soft and low _

_ And think of me, how it's gonna be _

It wasn’t hopeless, she told herself as Aziraphale adjusted his hold a little so he could press his cheek to hers, a sort of savage optimism. He’d said, in the car with a tartan thermos between them, he’d said then, _ maybe one day. _ They just… they just needed to get past this little… Apocalypse. Get a bit of breathing room. And then, who knew? Maybe Above and Below would be too bemused by the non-starter, or too pissed at each other, to bother themselves with what two lowly field agents were up to. They just needed more _ time. _They could get there. 

If she could believe it was perfectly safe to careen through central London at speeds a 1929 Bentley had never been designed to achieve, she could believe that. 

_ Oh, I will hold you and love you again _

_ But until then, we'll just pretend _

They danced until the end of the record, then stood a moment in stillness and quiet.

“I should-- I should g--” Crowley’s voice cracked like dusty old paper. She tried to move away instead, only to find Aziraphale’s hold unyielding. “Angel?”

By her right ear, just by the small demonic sign that marked her nature, Aziraphale pressed his lips, a soft, lingering kiss that made her quake like the parched earth under rain. And then he let her go, stepping back, releasing her hand last of all. There was a faint blush to his skin, and another, altogether different glow, just to the left of human sight.

“See you soon,” he said, voice a little throaty, eyes a little shy, and Crowley barely remembered to stop and get her things from the hat stand before stumbling out. 

It didn’t hit her until she was sitting in the Bentley, smiling faintly to herself in unmoving traffic just outside of Piccadilly Circus, that they’d completely forgotten to talk shop.

***

On the tallest shelf in the dimmest, dustiest corner of the bookshop lurked a small, brown mouse. She was perfectly unremarkable in every way, and perhaps that might have provided a clue to a keen observer, but the mouse was taking pains to go unobserved, and besides, there was only one other being in the shop now, and he was somewhat preoccupied with the film reel of recent events unscrolling inside his own head. He had returned the gramophone’s needle to the outer orbit of the vinyl disc, and like the inevitable death spiral of a star to a black hole, it made its slow journey back towards the centre, trailing music in its wake. The same music the angel had danced to a short while earlier, in orbit around his own dark companion.

It wasn’t possible the mouse had had anything to do with the way those events had played out -- a mouse was just a mouse, after all, and couldn’t possibly have had any influence over whether or not a stack of vinyl records should fall and scatter like constellations across the Persian rug, to weave a net fit for a demon (_ this _ demon). Or indeed the way the angel’s quivering indecision was about to be resolved. But when he picked up the phone to leave a message on the demon’s answering machine, She nodded in satisfaction nonetheless.

“Crowley, I'm afraid we got rather distracted earlier, but we really do need to strategise, my dear. What do you say to lunch out next weekend? My treat. How about… a picnic?”

**Author's Note:**

> Song lyrics from Always on My Mind, Can’t Help Falling in Love, and Just Pretend by Elvis Presley.
> 
> You can find me [here on Tumblr](https://themoonmothwrites.tumblr.com/), come say hi :)


End file.
